Motivational quote
"Good, better, best--never let it rest until your good is better, and your better is best." --St. Jerome
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Welcome
For this week's "peek under the hood," I'll be showcasing some breathtaking new audio processing effects that I've started implementing in some of my early recordings (1980's &1990's), and of course, they will be used on all future works. First off is "Neutron Elements" from iZotope (linkable screenshot shown above).
This is an audio enhancing tool that adds sparkle and depth to any instrument or mix. It utilizes "smart technology" to analyze the sound and then configures itself to the best combination of equalization, compression, excitation, and transient (attack of the sound--the hit or pluck, for example) control to bring out that instument's (or mix's) best qualities. As you can imagine, this took 10,000 or so iterations of "machine learning" for the developers to teach the software about all
the most common music (and dialogue) scenarios!
You can hear examples of these enhancements on the first three tracks of " Water Circle" which was recorded in 1994 on
16-track analog tape and mastered to CD (very high quality, but still adds a little tape noise, or hiss, most evident during the quiet moments of the music (low signal-to-noise ratio). Tracks 4-8 have not been processed yet, but I hope be addressing those in the coming weeks...
Speaking of noise brings us to the next new jewel of audio technology...
The next new tool, also from iZotope, is RX7, an absolutely incredible (powerful, detailed) audio repair processor (linkable screenshot shown above). By loading your audio into it, you can click one button to analyze it for issues, and it provides multiple options for one-click fixes, which is good because this is a highly technical challenge to remove the bad and keep the good! For example, the 1994 recordings of " Nature Suite for Piano" were recorded to cassette (very hissy) through two (left and right) microphones (also introducing noise to the recording). I've processed the first song off that album, " Ocean
Sunrise," this week with the above tools and restored it to a better state than it ever was! Subsequent treatments on this recording using RX7 (multiple passes) may yield even better results. iZotope implies that, but I haven't tested it yet. It's rather time-consuming on an old, slow computer, and the results after one pass are honestly stunning! If you listen to any of the other tracks (besides the first) you'll see immediately the difference in tape hiss...
The third audio processing element I've just started using to update my recording quality (which you hear now in the first three tracks of Water Circle and the first track of Nature Suite for Piano) is Binaural Panning.
Binaural Panning emulates how sound physically travels between your two ears. So in real life, for example, a sound coming from your left reaches both ears at different volumes. This can be achieved with a traditional panner.
But binaural panning goes a step further. A sound from your left side not only reaches both ears at different volumes, but also at different times, since your right ear is further away from the sound. Not only that, but a sound from your left side gets filtered through your head, and through the environment a bit, before it reaches your right ear, so the sound getting to your right ear is not only quieter, but arrives a tiny bit later, and is filtered down a bit
(contains less of the higher frequencies, so it sounds duller).
Binaural panners simulate this with delays and filters to emulate the feel of hearing real 3d sounds with your two physical ears in real life (in a physical environment). It's somewhat similar to taking a flat (2D) image and projecting it into 3D--much more interesting when you add that third dimension (depth). This is especially beneficial to tone-paintings that contain sound effects (samples) of real world, like ocean waves and wind. It can help you feel like
you're actually there--a more immersive experience!
One last example I was able to apply all this to this week was another of my early (synth) works that was recorded while I was living in Boston, MA on my 21st Birthday in 1988, " Afterimage." (Linkable cover art shown above)
As always, thanks for listening!
-Shawn
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